Help, career mode is fizzling on me.

[TerminalV]

First up this is not a dump on KSP thread. It will be critical in parts but I suspect there are things I can do in addition to suggestions for how the game can get better too. I suspect some of what follows has been talked about before and I have missed it so I apologize for that.

So when the Career mode hit 0.24 I loved it. Played it a bunch; unlock nearly the entire tech tree and had a nice space station built around a Class-C asteroid orbiting Mun. 0.25 comes out and I start over. For my first run I started on normal mode and after playing with the new administrative building I unlock the entire tech tree an never left LKO. It was anticlimactic to say the least. I have started over again on hard with a couple minor concessions (reverts and saves). This is better but I am now finding the contracts I need to survive to be boring and repetitive. In the previous version I could do what I wanted for the most part and pick up contracts that fit with what I was doing etc. Now on hard you have to be on contract or starve. That would be OK if there was some more structure/goals to the contracts.

So first up tell me some things I can do with the existing features that might put some more life back into career mode for me. To this point I have not install any mods to KSP. I have resisted that but if you can make a convincing argument I might give mods a try.

Next some of my suggestions:

1) Have contract story arcs. A larger goal that you would accept like a contract, (ie land a Kerbal on Minmus) and then have a series of logical and connected contracts that build up the needed tech/spacecrafts to achieve that goal. Obviously it could be as simple as put a science satellite in orbit to much more difficult missions like a base on one of Jool's moons. Incorporate doing specific science tasks into these missions.

2) More rescue missions. The Kerbal rescue in orbit is fun but how about a crashed craft on a moon or planet that you have to go and rescue the crew from. Or a crippled vehicle that is adrift headed for danger (crash into a planet escape the system, etc) if you don't get there in time.

3) In addition to the story arc contract there could be later contracts to maintain those. Say an early contract story arc had you build a base on Minmus you might be required to deliver something to the base as a mission.

Thanks for reading

[sal_vager]

I'd just like to remind everyone that career and contracts are not finished, pretty much no balancing took place, Squad just got the functionality in with basic values and intend to do the balancing in later updates.

Yes it's currently an easy unbalanced mess, this is not the final form

[Zylark]

Umm, Fine Print for more varied contracts - add to it Dmagic Orbital Science and SCANsat, and you'll even get some anomaly hunting.

TAC Life-Support for various supply mission and having to keep your missions on a schedule. running out of food, water or oxygen is - as they say - not an option.

Though the goodieness of KSP is what you make it into yourself. Unlocking the Tech-Tree isn't the end of a career in my book - it isn't even the beginning of the end. It's only the end of the beginning...

[TerminalV]

I'd just like to remind everyone that career and contracts are not finished, pretty much no balancing took place, Squad just got the functionality in with basic values and intend to do the balancing in later updates.

Yes it's currently an easy unbalanced mess, this is not the final form

I understand this and that way I did not want to total dump on KSP. I really like the game. I have fun with it. I see a lot of fun potential still untapped and wanted to share my $0.02. I was also hoping to find things I might be missing to make the current version more fun while we wait for Squad to release further features and content.

[bdito]

The Fine Print mod offers a larger variety of contracts. It's supposed to be implemented into the stock game at some later point.

[ringerc]

I really like your crippled-and-in-danger rescue. Something that's not just "oh, ok, I'll get to you some time in the next five years while you orbit in your space suit".

I'd also like some with more mystery and/or challenge, not just "do this random thing". Mini-scenarios that introduce new challenges and build new skills.

Things like least-time or least-fuel orbital rendezvous / orbital insertion / transfers necessitated by time constraints or fuel constraints on supplied vessels. Manoeuvres without full navball assists introduced with missions where you take control of an existing ship that's had gimbal lock / display failure / etc. Out-of-resource and system-fault scenarios where you can rescue the crew *or* for better results, repair/refuel the vessel and let it carry on its mission. On surface recovery missions in variously challenging environments and going from recovery of a lone crew member to recovery of a whole disabled lander. Search-and-rescue missions where the exact target location isn't known.

Bonus points for keeping the missions goofy and based on Kerbals doing incredibly silly things to get themselves into absurd situations that're still fun and challenging.

Examples:

A kerbal on EVA on a big highly elliptically orbiting asteroid forgot to secure their lander. In other words, they forgot the parking brake. They bumped the throttle while reaching back in to lock the controls and it boosted away from the asteroid, leaving them and the extended-life-support rover behind and only a little bit charred. They're going to be taking a very long trip to the edge of the solar system and it's going to get awfully lonely. Then they'll get fried by the sun on the way back in a few years. Their ship's nearby in a matching orbit, but the post-it note they wrote its location down on was stuck to the lander so they can't just use RCS jets on their suit to reach it. Rescue them. Bonus points if you dock with their lander and bring it back, then fly their lander to their ship and dock it so they can continue with their mission.

A recent launch of a space lab has failed to reach a stable orbit after premature separation of the final stage on the circularising burn. I didn't hit the wrong button, really, it just fell off by its self. The lab is grazing the atmosphere slightly on each orbit and you don't have too many orbits before it begins re-entry. Rescue the Kerbals within - or for a bigger reward, dock with it, boost it to a stable orbit so you get to keep using it. (It's a fancy lab module with a bunch of nice equipment on it and a couple of docking ports; a really attractive thing to rescue if you're in career mode once resources start to actually matter in the game.)

Orbiting dude has only two days of oxygen, better get to him soon. He kinda forgot to fuel up his RCS before going EVA and he only noticed when he pushed off to fly around to the other side of the module. Um. Help?

Orbiting dude has only two days of oxygen, better get to him soon. Nell and Jessie were really annoying in that tiny little can so I decided to go outside for a breather. The next thing I know we're boosting and I'm tumbling away. It's nice to be away from them at last, but it's getting stuffy in here...

A Kerbal on EVA around Mun had their RCS jam on and they're now on a highly eccentric orbit that grazes incredibly close to the surface. Rescue them, but don't plow into the Mun in the process.

A lander module's gyros failed and it went into an uncontrollable tumble orbiting Mun. Grapple it, stabilise yourself, and EVA-rescue the crew within. Or get the crew to EVA while it's tumbling and hope they don't get smashed by the tumbling ship then go catch up with them and rescue them.

A ship's engine failed to shut down and burned to fuel exhaustion, causing it to reach Kerbal escape velocity - but only just. Go fetch. Better be quick!

A Kerbal on the Mun (or your body of choice) got too excited flying their lander around and forgot to keep an eye on the fuel gauge. Bring them some fuel.

A kerbal ejected from a jet after engine failure. They're stuck in the mountains. How are your VTOL jet/rocket skills?

A kerbal got lost on EVA on the Mun and they aren't responding on comm. Locate them (get within say 2km and their marker appears) then rescue them. You can use a rover. You can use a crater-grazing low orbit module for visual search. You can build a probe with a camera scientific module (want want want!) and transmit photos to base for analysis to find them. You can hop around with a lander. It doesn't matter.

A kerbal decided it'd be fun to land on a big asteroid using just the RCS jets on their EVA suit, but they used all their fuel on the way down. There's just one problem... they don't know which asteroid they're on.

So, Joseph promised he knew how to fly this thing. It turns out he doesn't. Please help us. He's trying to put us down on Minimus but we're pretty sure he's doesn't know how and he's not listening. (Meet up with a craft that keeps on boosting directly at right angles from its current orbit around Minimus at some particular point, changing the orbit angle but not its altitude, then rescue all the crew except Joe, who refuses to leave, via EVA. Or for bonus points dock with it and then land it and yourself on Minimus. Intact.)

"Fred and Karen were arm-wrestling because they were bored and one of them kind of hit the stage separation button by accident. So we're on a high suborbital trajectory and we could really use a hand, 'cos this thing isn't made for re-entry".

Two crews were playing docking-chicken and they both lost. Meet up with each damaged, uncontrolled crew capsule and rescue the crew. (One of them will collide with an obstacle in a while, but the game doesn't point that out; you need to prioritise them yourself.)

A crew decided that Minimus looked boring and they'd rather go to one of the planets, but it turns out they didn't bring enough fuel for the orbital insertion. Save them and chastise them. Bonus points if you can instead transfer enough fuel to get their craft back home ... with a competent crew, this time.

A ship's electrics failed while it was boosting, sending it on a wild tumble up out of the ecliptic in orbit / at escape velocity without the ability to shut down the engines. Meet up with them and either fix (via EVA) and refuel the ship, or just rescue the crew for reduced points.

A ship is leaking atmosphere and it's not going to make it back to re-entry and landing. Or rather, the ship will, pity about the crew. Go fix or rescue.

A crew went on a mission to explore a planet. They got bored on the way and detached the lander module so they could fly some loops around the ship, but they forgot about it while they were having lunch and now it's gone. (Take control of the errant crew's ship at mission start, and EVA one of them out to the lander, or boost to meet it and re-dock).

Challenge mission: A ship is on an excessively steep re-entry course after a miscalculation and it's out of fuel now. Help them. (You can go meet them in a new launch if you're quick, but there's not much time and if you screw up your docking you risk re-entering right along with them. The better solution is to detach the landing capsule and burn all its RCS fuel on a puny prograde boost so it re-enters at a better angle, but the game won't tell you that.)

A ship miscalculated its boost to Mun (or whatever). Badly. It turns out that those letters have different meanings, you can't boost on the z axis if it says x. It's on course to loop out past Minimus. Take control of the ship (becomes available at mission accept) and put it in orbit of Mun. Be careful, there's not much fuel left to correct the crew's mistake.

We had a fight about who got to do the EVA and we couldn't agree, so we all went out. Then Fred realised that he'd left the airlock on auto-secure and we're locked out of the module. We're all hanging on to the ladders ... er, kerbal transfer assistance devices ... and we could really use a hand getting the ship to a station. It's kind of embarrassing. (Dock a one-kerbal tug to a larger vessel and perform gentle manoeuvres to match its orbit with a station; mission only triggers once you have an orbiting station that has no manoeuvring capacity of its own. Be careful not to manoeuvre gently or they'll lose their grip on the module.)

A ship is on a collision course for an asteroid and the crew have freaked out. Take control and bring it to rest relative to the 'roid. (Could be done by rendezvous or by granting remote control).

Our probe seems to be due to impact the Mun, not orbit it, and we're not sure what we did wrong. (Correct high velocity impact vector into a nice circular orbit by taking control of a craft. On success a message in the contract completion text chastises the engineering team for using krebs instead of meters).

A ship's nav assists failed when it was due for an orbital insertion burn and the crew have no idea how to orient without the pretty icons in the navball. Help them. (Challenge mission, do an orbital insertion with no navball retrograde/prograde icons etc.)

Further challenge mission: The ship's gyros have failed (gimbal lock). Do an orbital insertion with visual orientation.

Lots of possibilities, especially with putting ships you take control of into difficult scenarios and introducing easy fault conditions that don't require engine changes (or, in the case of navball restriction challenges, only require options that already exist).

[Wanderfound]

Go have a poke at the Fine Print​ thread. There's a good collection there of suggestions of things for Arsonide's team to implement, and you can probably expect a fair bit of it to make it into stock by 0.90.