KSP 0.90 'Beta Than Ever' Grand Discussion Thread!

[Wesreidau]

Career mode had become a grind for science and money, obstructed by barriers that failed to provide meaningful challenges beyond grinding out missions or scouring the system for science. Now it is honestly, truly fun. Money matters and Kerbals matter. Its a game again.

I really don't have words beyond this. Its tremendously satisfying to know that the alpha I supported for so long is coming to fruition as a game a person can honestly play, not as a sandbox, but as a challenge.

Now if you'll excuse me, Maxco Construction Toys wants their satellite and I need the money for my launch pad upgrades.

[johnsonwax]

It's up to Unity to provide a 64-bit version of the Unity player to begin with. Back when x64 was first being played with in version .23.5, I don't remember there even being one available to grab.

Ah, okay. I think the problem is that I was under the impression that Unity 5 had released, and I don't believe it has yet. Unity seems to be very off the rails ATM.

[RocketPilot573]

Very true, I think the KSC upgrade thing is the first feature in this game to truly give a sense of accomplishment. I have been playing .90 career for just a little bit and it actually feels like a proper game, unlike the past many updates.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

I really want barns

[technicalfool]

I'll be reporting this as a bug.

If you do too many undos in the SPH or VAB, the new menu for parts gets corrupted and goes blank, and also, it disables any attempt to add parts to your existing ship. Sorry I forgot to put a screenshot, will update this post later when I take a snap.

Probably better for you (and anybody else) to make a thread in the relevant support forum. It'll help get your problem looked at sooner, and prevent the release thread from getting clogged up with support requests and responses!

[Captain Sierra]

This is the first time I've played career and actually been challenged. I'm very much enjoying it. Moreso I am enjoying playing stock, which is huge for me. SPP going stock, now an editor overhaul, Stock is fun again!

Now, C7 aerospace wants me to test a landing gear on a kerbin escape trajectory. I shall return after I politely tell them they're insane.

[Renegrade]

I have to concur. The editor widgets are something I've wanted forever and ever (although I could still use an alignment plane tool), and the building upgrades are actually soaking up some of that no-longer-useless money

[Sasquatch_Punter]

+1

First time I've actually had to restart a career play through due to being beaten by hard mode. I barely orbited the Mun with tier 1 buildings before I realized that I blew the budget on tech I didn't need.

Strapped for cash. Forced to get creative with basic tech because a renovated R&D facility costs over a million funds. No EVAs. No patched conics. No maneuver nodes. Can barely get enough science to unlock most basics because missions are 100% harder without all the nagivation aids. Can't even launch a Mun lander before upgrading the launch pad.

You have to fight to survive in Hard Mode now.

[WanderingKid]

I feel the career mode parts count/weight limit for the starting level maybe a bit harsh.... now my next MAIN contract would be to visit the mun... and the parts counts/weight make it impossible to take along 3 material bay and 3 goo (landing site + low orbit + high orbit)... I have the fund to upgrade the launch pad for the weight limit, but not yet the fund to upgrade the VAB for the parts limit.

Running in Hard mode, I disagree. It's forced me to actually care about not simply slapping on MOAR BOOSTER, but learning the rocket equation. However, I agree that you can't haul 3 Mat bays and 3 Goo cans ( my usual science bomb for first mun run, I send three of them). On the other hand, science? Wut science? I blew past that long before I had cash for it with R&D. I'm stuck until I can upgrade my R&D and I've only upgraded the contract center so far.

Edit: It's quite possible to deliver satellites to Munar/Minmus height orbits with just the 18 parts, once you open up a few things. In particular you need Fuel Systems, Okto, and Electrics. Fuel Systems for the 48-7S, Okto for the SAS for sanity, and Electrics for a pair of OX-Stats. Slap that with an antenna on top of a FL-T100 Fuel Tank and you've got ~2500 dV to play with.

Edit2: A picture can be worth a thousand words:

either raise the initial limit.... or add in an a cheaper intermediate upgrade level for the building. Basically i felt the contract progression does not match the building progression

The latter I agree with. The 3 tier jumps are HUGE. There's not a lot of in between from 'Orbit' to 'Anywhere' to 'Eve Return vehicle'.

and what sup with the basic jet contract that give you the experimental jet but not the intake?

Annoying, but those contracts I usually just laugh at. I drag the part along, stage it at some point with thrust set to 0 in the launch bay, and then kick it off my rocket. Can do that with pretty much any engine that you can deadlift.

Edited December 16, 2014 by WanderingKid

[Menecroth]

I was thinking this would be a Christmas release. But... it's here!

[Yellowburn10]

I guess you could say the career is... beta than ever?

*Cherp cherp cherp*

Well, whatever. I am finding career a lot more fun as well. Just when I think I'm getting rich, I realize I need to spend the money to upgrade my buildings. I even started myself with a smaller budget than it gives you, AND having to buy everything you research with science, now my budget is finally becoming something I need to manage. Not to mention all the contracts I need to do, which I've started to pay more attention to the fine print (no pun intended) to see if the contract is really worth my time and effort, in exchange for pay.

[Captain Sierra]

+1

First time I've actually had to restart a career play through due to being beaten by hard mode. I barely orbited the Mun with tier 1 buildings before I realized that I blew the budget on tech I didn't need.

Strapped for cash. Forced to get creative with basic tech because a renovated R&D facility costs over a million funds. No EVAs. No patched conics. No maneuver nodes. Can barely get enough science to unlock most basics because missions are 100% harder without all the nagivation aids. Can't even launch a Mun lander before upgrading the launch pad.

You have to fight to survive in Hard Mode now.

I'm playing on normal but with crew auto-hire and respawn disabled. I cant say I feel your pain, because I don't entirely feel your pain, but that 30 part VAB limit is killing my Munar flyby attempt. I'm also strap for cash constantly and at 210,000 funds to upgrade, sheesh. That'll be a while. And I havent even looked at the astronaut complex and R&D, which I ought to do soon, but am not.

[DerpenWolf]

Loving the space station missions! Also Kerbal experience is pretty awesome!!

[Emperoreddy]

The break up of things between buildings really adds a challenge too. To just get EVA you have to upgrade Astronaut Complex, but to be able to do surface sample science you need to upgrade R&D. To get conicals back you need tracking, but need to upgrade mission control for flight planning.

[Mattasmack]

+1

First time I've actually had to restart a career play through due to being beaten by hard mode. I barely orbited the Mun with tier 1 buildings before I realized that I blew the budget on tech I didn't need.

Strapped for cash. Forced to get creative with basic tech because a renovated R&D facility costs over a million funds. No EVAs. No patched conics. No maneuver nodes. Can barely get enough science to unlock most basics because missions are 100% harder without all the nagivation aids. Can't even launch a Mun lander before upgrading the launch pad.

You have to fight to survive in Hard Mode now.

This has been my experience in hard mode as well, so far. It's great! There's some struggle now rather than just 'how fast can I unlock the whole tech tree?'. I haven't had to restart yet, but I've stranded Jeb in orbit on an attempted rescue mission, and can't rescue him because he can't EVA yet... I'll probably have to do a Mun or Minmus landing to raise funds for that, but one or two failed missions will bankrupt me and I don't have patched conics or maneuver nodes yet...

[WanderingKid]

Playing on hard, and to get enough R&D conversion to science I had to manually fly a no SAS satellite into place. That was hard as heck, satisfying as all get out. I agree. This is the beginning of the game I've been waiting for.

I really, really hope they never bring back the science grind. I'd like to see those parts as specialty missions, no longer expected to be dragged everywhere, every time, just to get something done.

[Kelderek]

I had played career mode in 0.25 on moderate and was comfortable, when I tried that in 0.90 it was a LOT more difficult. I ended up scrapping that first 0.90 career in favor of a custom normal-moderate hybrid. It is definitely a lot more challenging. The difficulty settings affect the KSC upgrade costs -- I'm pretty sure the launch pad was about 75k on moderate, but on normal it's more like 50k for the first upgrade.

[Zenith Darksea]

I like to think of myself as a pretty seasoned KSP player - I've previously been to Duna, Laythe, Moho, Gilly, and even landed on and returned from Eve. So I thought that I should just dive right into 0.90 on hard difficulty, as anything less would just be beneath me.

I'm starting to have second thoughts though! Hard difficulty is really hard! I'm actually having to think quite a lot about what I build into my rocket and how. Lack of funds is a constant problem, and certainly the main problem - the basic facilities don't allow you to do much at all. The launch pad only allows small rockets, the tracking station doesn't really give you any useful info, and I haven't invented batteries yet...

I managed to rescue a Kerman who inexplicably got stuck in orbit, and this took real skill (even if I say so myself). I had to invent a probe core and put it on top of an empty command pod, which I then launched into orbit after waiting for Ronfrey Kerman to drift into the right place. Luckily I launched at just the right time, and managed to circularise my orbit so that I was more or less parallel with him. Problem 1: the basic tracking station doesn't give you time to apoapsis/periapsis, time to intercept target, point of closest approach, etc. etc... You have to eyeball the whole thing. I actually managed to guesstimate my orbit with the spacecraft until I got close to him, then switched over and had to use the EVA jetpack to fly to the spacecraft, again eyeballing it the whole way. Whew!

This gave me the money to upgrade my launchpad, so I got cocky and decided to try to orbit the Mun and return. Well, I got to orbit the Mun alright, but then I simply ran out of electric charge - I hadn't invented batteries yet! Now Jebediah is stuck in an eccentric orbit around Kerbin, having failed to make it all the way back (wasted too much fuel trying to charge the batteries) and I don't have the money or the technical capability to rescue him! Aargh!

Maybe I should try it on normal difficulty now. Is it just me, or is 0.90 really, really hard?

[WanderingKid]

Just to confirm for Hard Mode:

Launch Pad Upgrade 1-2 104,000

Tracking Station Upgrade 1-2 280,000

R&D Center Upgrade 1-2 1,020,000

[barfing_skull]

Some cool upgrades in 0.90...but....

Fuel lines stopped working for me. Engines don't pull from all tanks, it acts like they're separated and no cross-feed is going on. Pretty much like they're not there. It defeated my asparagus staging on a couple rockets. I've searched around a bit for any information on something that might have changed, but haven't found anything yet....other than they might have changed, but not how. Is there some new technique for building these? I tried replacing the fuel lines on the rockets, no dice.

The craft were carried over from 0.25. Notable plugins I have:

Protractor (I may get rid of this)

LandingHeight

MechJeb2.

Cheers,

-BS

[Xavven]

I agree with everyone here! Hard mode in .25 was a disappointment. I had the same build order as before and it just got boring.

In .90, when I realized I couldn't get to Mun without upgrading my launchpad which came with a hefty price tag, it dawned on me that KSP career mode finally threw a challenge at me. I had to do some survey jobs around Kerbin to build up enough cash to do the .... Mun flyby.

And then I realized I was going to have to do it without patched conics. This was absolutely nail biting because I knew I was not going to make an efficient hohmann transfer without maneuver nodes + patched conics, and with delta-v being already tight because of both VAB and lauchpad restrictions, I was for the first time in forever very nervous about a mission. I didn't even bring goo or science jr. with me because I wanted the extra 300 dV I would get by forgoing it. This really feels like a good game now!

Then I did a Mun aerial survey. 3 sites under 9000 meters altitude, accomplished by getting into a polar orbit. This really gave me a sense of purpose as I felt like I was scouting out potential landing sites and conducting a real observation mission. Mun is exciting again, and the funds I got from it were extremely needed. Still saving up for that tracking station upgrade.

BRAVO, Squad. You did it!

Okay, now for my one piece of constructive criticism. There was only one boring lull during my campaign so far, and that was when I was doing Kerbin survey contacts while saving up for a launchpad. Satellite contracts would have been way more fun. Maybe satellite contracts should appear earlier in the game, at the same time as survey contracts once you've proven you can make orbit.

[Xavven]

It's definitely a challenge now. I have only succeeded because of the hundreds of hours I've had in KSP in earlier versions, my delta-v spreadsheet, and my understanding of how my orbit will change with radial and prograde/retrograde burns in order to correct my trajectory to Mun and back.

To upgrade my launchpad, I had to do something like 4 Kerbin survey contracts. That was a little grindy. Mun without a tracking station giving patched conics or maneuver nodes is VERY scary! You have to lean on your experience in sandbox.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Tip to beat the grind. Go straight for jet engines and landing gear.. jets make GREAT test and survey platforms and if you can land you save 100% on the parts.

[Claw]

Fuel line code was changed. Functionality should be the same, so if you're having problems try to delete the old fuel lines and replace them. See if that kicks them into place.

Cheers,

~Claw

[Kelderek]

It looks like most people are needing to adjust down from their 0.25 difficulty settings. I had to do this. The KSC upgrade costs are very different in each difficulty. I've also found myself staying on Kerbin a lot longer than I did in the past, so that I can make some money and gain better tech to do the more distant adventures.

One thing that stands out is how hard many of the contracts are in this new setting. With so many limits on techs, funds, part counts, and rocket mass, combined with the increased piloting and navigational difficulty, I think there should be some more easy contracts to do that don't require such pinpoint skill. Having to nail a specific altitude and speed to test a rocket part in flight is a lot harder now. Something like "gather science from Kerbin's Highlands" would be a good entry-level contract for a new player. In fact, I think the contracts should do a lot more to direct you to the things you need to learn like biome hopping or achieving orbit with a certain amount of payload mass.