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[Skamp_X]

Hi there,

just thought id share a challenge I put myself up with and for who is interested in trying it,

long time player , been there done that so many times.

I been trying to make the game as hard as possible to respark my interest in the game.

Last I was playing career a lot on 0.23 but eventualy it was just getting too repetitive and easy.

I barly touched 0,24 , but with 0,25 I thought id have another go at the game,

but it had to be a challenge so I set the game as hard I could,

EXCEPT for the save and revert flight , I make to many dumb mistakes and with having to build as-cheap-as-possible crafts,

failure is guaranteed along the way.

So settings are:

It's really hard (and fun!) to make any progress at first but after 2 game attempts and failed, starting a 3 time and applying what I learned,

finally got me going.

I spend 2 days playing over 12 hours each (day of + saterday) and I seem to have broken trough now,

Still no solar panels , but got a satellite in orbit of eve with goo pods and battery's ready to transmit 0% sience ,

but accomplish the recurring mission to transmit data (or retrieve).

same for mun and minmus.

Sience income is still very slow but plans for duna , ike and more are up next

SOoo , anyone else try this or wants to try it?

*Edit , should update the challenge, pic on 2nd page is what it is now

10% for rewards / max penaltys for fail/ 0 start cash / -1000 rep / no save (unless your game crashes a lot)/ no revert / and NO use of strategies

Edited November 27, 2014 by Skamp_X

[TJPrime]

I'm up for it, though I think this could be more like other challenges, so that it includes a leader-board and points system. For example:

Points= T * S + D + M

T = time to complete the tech tree (Earth time in hours)

S = number of ships flown (includes failed missions, but not test flights)

D= Difficulty (Easy = 1, Normal = 2, and so on)

M = mods (mods that make it hard = 1-3 (depending on difficulty); mods that make it easy = -1 - -3 (depending on how easy it is); stock = 0)

So lets say I took 4 months, 17 days and 5 hours (1157 hours), flew 23 ships, had it set onto Hard mode and used stock, that's 1157 + 23 + 4 = 1184 points

Not saying you have to, but it's just a nice little touch on any challenge

[Pamynx]

I am currently playing something similar but with some addons :

-Settings put to hard (Just hard not insane like you ), and without the saves.

-FAR and DRE in order to get help destroying my ships.

-TAC life support in order to get help killing the Kerbals.

-Remote Tech in order to get help loosing ships in the deep void of the space.

-Fine prints because it is fun and helps a lot to get cash putting easy satellites into orbit.

I also do not allow myself to send a manned mission farther in the space then a probe already went, and won't start a new tier of research before all the current tier is over.

Not allowing saves add a lot more fun and force you to make rescue missions (And cry when you crash) :

-I had to set up a rescue mission to the Mun because Jeb wanted to land without enough fuel to go back, he was almost killed due to a lack of electricity in the long night of the Mun and he had to run in the dark to join the rescue ship (And jump on it because I did not research the ladder yet).

-Jeb, Bob and Bill died because I open the parachute too early during a return mission.

-I crashed many planes creating a jet that is able to make the survey missions in Kerbin atmophere.

-I loose a probe out of Kerbin SOI during my first asteroid hunt due to a connection problem.

-I just sent a rescue mission to the crew that managed to land on Minmus but pushed to much the gaz button during their taking off and left Kerbin SOI.

Just like you I do not know if this is a challenge but a least this is a funny way to play this version

[Skamp_X]

Making a leaderboard and track progress would be to painfull I think,

and at 10% resource per mission you can imagine its slow going.

Money has picked up speed now,

up until I got batterys, I was still barly braking even after every mission with cash like 11-13k,

even doing flyby of mun and minmus in one go together with kerbin orbit to get the cash from 'transmit or return data from...' on each mission.

But once I got the batterys thinks got easier, now with sats in orbit around kerbin , mun and minmus with 6 goo pods each, money is starting to roll.

Last added was probe to eve and last night duna.

I still gotta de-orbit the sats and replace them after 6 missions everytime but I feel im getting on top of the game now.

Also each time getting 1 or 2 sience point because of the perk I selected (rep for sience) is welcome but slow progress (at 49 now , need 90 for solar panels).

Just to give an idea , i got 26 accomplished transmitions from kerbin alone.

If you see from the second pic how far I got after all that, its gonna take a long time to unlock the full tree...

As for not using save game, atm im just making to many dumb mistakes (like having engine in same stage as chute), id be broke in no time

But if i progress far enuf in the tree, i just might try it again without saves.

Playing stock so all my missions are trail runs , got enuf fuel to get to mun or duna? i guess will find out

I do like the idea of mods to make it harder, life support err yea man

But one challenge at a time

[Jasonden]

Trying this the first time I seem to have stalled out. I have a two-stage-to-orbit system, with the first stage landing back at KSP to recoup the part costs. But I'm stuck with it only offering me part tests that can't make money. It won't give me the "Explore the Mun" contract. Any idea what the trigger is for that?

[Skamp_X]

I din't get the 'expore the mun' contract either,

eventualy I used all remaining cash to build something that can do a flyby of mun and return,

ones I got close to mun (between getting grabbed and escape from mun) , the contract to return or send data from mun appeared,

together with send or return data from kerbin I was getting back about the same cash as I spend but was getting good sience points.

after 2 of these runs , I tried and succeeded in going for minmus flyby + mun flyby and return, got all 3 missions either enabled or appearing as I got close to target.

And to add , solid boosters are my best friend at first, they are cheap and save cash to use as separator

Edited October 27, 2014 by Skamp_X

[Jasonden]

once I got close to mun (between getting grabbed and escape from mun) , the contract to return or send data from mun appeared

Aha -- nice! I'll give that a shot! Wasn't ballsy enough myself to spend my only remaining money without a contract, but that's a great idea.

[Jasonden]

Okay, I see what you mean, now. I did a Munar free-return mission and got the "Plant a flag on the Mun" and "return data from space around the Mun" contracts once I entered the Mun's SOI. Not as lucrative as "Explore the Mun", but good enough to make a good profit on my cheap free-return mission. I don't see why I wouldn't be able to do at least as well with an orbiter or lander. I did get "Explore Ike" now. So . . . interesting. Maybe I'll do that next before Minmus

In other news, I signed up for 10% outsourced R&D, which is probably as overpowered in your challenge as in the normal game. I'm hoping, anyway!

This is a fun challenge; I'm enjoying the constraints.

[Holo]

Allow quicksaving and reverting? Amateur!

[Jasonden]

Allow quicksaving and reverting? Amateur!

Quicksaving is necessary, I've found. For whatever reason when I use the persistent.sfs sometimes when I go back to my missions the Kraken eats them, whereas using quicksaves the spacecraft themselves are much more stable. Does this not happen to you? Maybe it's my setup or my mods or something that's causing it . . . I do use Editor Extensions to attach things radially sometimes, which might be correlated with the issue.

Edited October 28, 2014 by Jasonden

[Skamp_X]

Allow quicksaving and reverting? Amateur!

Well ....have you even tried it, btw this is no mods so nothing to tell you if what you build is enuff to get the job done.

Anyways you set me on a road to hell...

Was already restarted and playing with 0 start cash aswell , but i guess i might aswell make the tittle worth it,

restarted again with NO saves.Also set rep to -1000 , no going harder on the settings now.

Already tried / failed/ deleted and restarted 6 times but just finaly made orbit.

[Jasonden]

restarted again with NO saves.Also set rep to -1000 , no going harder on the settings now.

Already tried / failed/ deleted and restarted 6 times but just finaly made orbit.

Yah that's crazy dude -- no margin for error. Good luck though!

[metaphor]

I was using the same settings in my 0.25 career save with funds at 0. I've found it's hard at first, but it actually gets easier as you go on. I just got a mission back from Duna, and by now it seems rather similar to a regular career save. The science is kind of a problem until you get the admin strategy to make science from funds. Not to mention you can get a good amount of science at first by walking around KSC without launching anything. The funds are probably the biggest difference from regular career mode, since you're always tight on funds.

[Skamp_X]

Yep agreed, ones you get to battery's things get a lot easier, at solar panels its a done deal.

Just set up sats at various planets or muns , stuffed with goo pods and batts and the money comes in nicely doing the data missions.

As for playing with no Saves.....nightmare.

At restarting from zero for the 12th time, redoing the first missions Again(!) everytime , finaly got to orbit again for the 2nd time,

this time with a little more cash, and then getting a little more sience around , finaly got the lv909 and landing legs.

At 8200 cash it was do or die going for mun flyby.

And ...made it ! BUT the damn mission for send data or recover from Mun never appeared, neither did the kerbin one again....

Broke and failed AGAIN!

Very frustrating, should have never gotten suckered in to that no-save ...

[Kaos]

I also tried the settings with everything to hardest possible (including start reputation and money) and only got to orbit.

Then I modified it for getting 20% reward and got started quite easy.

With start reputation and money from the hard mode and everything else as hard as possible, it was still quite easy.

Now I'm trying this with the further restriction of not using strategies and with only manned missions, new crewmembers only from rescue missions. Then I get balanced progress. I'm not using savegames or reverts, so I had a quite interesting mission to get Jeb back from Minmus without much of technology

Edited November 2, 2014 by Kaos

[Jasonden]

The science is kind of a problem until you get the admin strategy to make science from funds.

Boy, you got it. Even as tight as funds are, this breaks it open. It's still kind of challenging with the science strategies, but it was WAY harder trying to make science on just 10% all the time.

[Skamp_X]

Took a break for over a week and restarted for the 13th time 3 days ago,

again , 10% resources ,1000 penalty, 0 start cash, -1000 start rep(!) , and ...No saves or Revert options. (like the last pic shows).

And behold(!) , I'm getting on top of it now!

Started with the usual routine,

1-accept 'reach orbit / first flight / 5000m hight

2-accept reach 11000m hight and compleet

3-accept escape the atmosfeer and 22000m and complete

4-reach orbit

5-reached mun orbit

Reaching mun is always the breaking point, even on flyby the mission to transmit or recover doesn't always appear.

And if you go orbit till it does , you gotta get back , for cash of the parts + sience.

Well in this cause, I finaly got it right, cheap rocket had just enuf to get to high orbit and back to kerbin

So I had both kerbin and mun sience recover enabled and a rocket setup for each.

But then the hard part came, to fill up the -1000 rep pit.....

Serious grinding....I launched each rocked about 20-25 times, each doing a transmit and a return sience...

Then some more to get a rep of 400 and enable the 'sience from rep' at 25%

2-3 more runs, this time with nice sience added to it (+2 for kerbin/ +4-5 for mun),

and I FINALLY had batterys!

After that it all started going pretty fast, also added minmus in the loop at this point,

about 3 hours later I got several more tech tree sections unlocked , (including solar panels ),

and just finished 'explore Eve'.

Still got 340k cash so , just a matter of time now before I unlock the hole tree

GG

Edited November 19, 2014 by Skamp_X

[Skamp_X]

Edit: I showed a pic of both rockets but that kind of kills the challenge for whoever wants to try it so removed

The current state of the tech tree

Edited November 19, 2014 by Skamp_X

[Jasonden]

also added minmus in the loop at this point

Restarted myself, without the use of Strategies since they pretty much break things. And this time I went to Minmus first instead of the Mun. This worked great -- the science multiplier there is higher, it requires less dV to get to, and you can hop between biomes to get more samples and science from a single mission.

[Skamp_X]

Restarted myself, without the use of Strategies since they pretty much break things. And this time I went to Minmus first instead of the Mun. This worked great -- the science multiplier there is higher, it requires less dV to get to, and you can hop between biomes to get more samples and science from a single mission.

No strategies? Man no merci lol

But ill admit , once you get the sience bonus perk it opens up the game.

So here we are , restarted again , same rules and NO strategies

Already got orbit and mun orbit again , orbit rocket this time is more efficient , I get 3 missions out of them , using engine to recharge electric,

but mun rocket is a nightmare.

Barly made it there and back first time , only made kerbin orbit second launch , only flyby on 3th , and now after losing controle it blew up just before separating (capsule + Bob survived)

12k left , so I got 1 more shot at it.

As for going to minmus , dint wanna risk it, already struggling making a mun rocket at this point,

you say less deltav, I don't get it ,I can barly make the altidude to reach mun , use little fuel to achieve orbit, and use like 20liq fuel to get back.

[Jasonden]

you say less deltav, I don't get it ,I can barly make the altidude to reach mun , use little fuel to achieve orbit, and use like 20liq fuel to get back.

Ah; less dV for a landing mission, I should have said! Not sure about what the minimum might be. I will post pics of my minmus and Mun rockets tonight maybe -- I have a SpaceX-like re-use strategy going on

[Skamp_X]

Doing good so far, just landed on minmus with 2 goopods , together with eva and surface samle, I just got batterys enabled.

Just learned something new, I accepted a mission to test seperatrons (correct?) and then relized I dint have them enabled yet.

So Noooo, but then err what, I can select them anyways, and did the mission.

Pretty interesting, so if I can integrade a mission that requires to test a component wich im not suppose to have yet in to my my mission, could be useful in the future.

Not landed on mun yet , and now with the sience jr lab added I got my work planned.

Weird to say but playing on these settings now , al previous ones just seem to be to easy

Bad news , for the first time in 2 years I lost kerbals , one uknown and Bob , dumb mistake, trottled up to break the landing and save the vehicle but timeaccelerate was still on

wrecked the chute and crash.

[zekes]

I play on sandbox. Why? Because it's hard to be a madman when you're on a budget...

[Skamp_X]

I play on sandbox. Why? Because it's hard to be a madman when you're on a budget...

I'm trying this game like this. Why ? because I been a madman on sandbox for years

Update on progress , been going well for a while now but getting worried on what's next.

I figured to get all the sience points possible I need to think big, as in all planetary objects including jool and moons.

At this point I skipped solar panels and went for Rcs trusters, with docking as my main goal.

Next up was sending a manned capsule to eve , landing and finishing exploring Gilly,

then keeping it there for sience transmit missions, same for duna but dint land on Ike,

Sending probe to eve and duna to land (Eve one failed , chutes broke!?), duna succeded with goo pods and mats bay.

Enabled Basic Rocketry and General construction and went for Mun Landing and retrieve sample/goo/mats.

Enabled advanced construction and now.....now what.

I got 26,7 sience points left , and my plan is to get to Specialized Construction (for docking!!) but how the hell am I gonna get another 133,3 sience points....

I might get some more from minmus and mun , maybe a sample return from Gilly and Ike, and maybe even duna if I can pull that off at this point.

Got 160k left atm, what to do next..

Edited November 26, 2014 by Skamp_X

[Moesly_Armlis]

The career choice you have made is the hardest setting this game currently has. Don't give up now and blaze that trail you have gotten further out than my latest attempts. Oh and maybe you are interested check out mission reports harderS career. With the mods I use it does make the begining somewhat easier, TLS gives a battery with 250 charge to the command module and FinePrint has aerial surveys that rack up the roots. Took me around 30 send data from space contracts to get the ball rolling. Tough challenge now, even tougher when buildings are to be upgraded.