Career too hard?

[Ziff]

It's ridiculous that I have to grind hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade buildings just so I can begin doing anything interesting. The costs or the payouts need serious balancing at lower difficulty levels.

Then give yourself some extra cash at the start. There is a reason the New Game menu allows you to add science and cash.

Edit: Don't worry about grinding parts testing missions to upgrade your R&D building. Upgrade what you -need- right now. You won't need to upgrade your R&D until you've spent like 1000 science. As your science goes up you will be able to complete tougher missions. Eventually you can bang out a few of the satellite contract missions and you'll be rich and famous too!

Edited December 17, 2014 by Ziff

[ArmchairGravy]

Then give yourself some extra cash at the start. There is a reason the New Game menu allows you to add science and cash.

Edit: Don't worry about grinding parts testing missions to upgrade your R&D building. Upgrade what you -need- right now. You won't need to upgrade your R&D until you've spent like 1000 science. As your science goes up you will be able to complete tougher missions. Eventually you can bang out a few of the satellite contract missions and you'll be rich and famous too!

I'm now playing easy with the funds slider maxed at 500k. This is about right for how I enjoy playing the game. The point is that while it's nice that the people who thought hard mode was to easy are now happy, the people who played on normal are finding the game too hard and grindy.

[gordon_freeman]

I came to this forum to write this exact same post. You honestly took the words right out of my mouth. Just standard career mode is way too hard now. That 30 part count is so frustrating, as is the tiny rewards for some of these tedious part testing contracts. I get that some of this is supposed to be hard, but it's not balanced any more.

I know in my head that I can do a custom mode and drag the sliders go get more money, science, etc, but that just feels like cheating, even though to some extent that is exactly what I want Squad to do in the next iteration! I bought this game for a buddy, and he only played it for 30 mins before quitting. Just a little less tedious please!

[gordon_freeman]

To me the contract explanations always read like some kind of goofy algorithm wrote them, they all sound like a crazy person rambling about that job they were fired from a year ago.

[Tail_TL]

I think maybe you guys are forgetting that there's such a thing called "Administration Building"... That was my 2nd priority, in upgrading a building (First being the launchpad)... guys the Admin building finally has a use and isn't actually overpowered now... So use it and don't tell me its still "Grindy", I don't understand people, if they wan't it to be easy then play on easy, hence the name "Easy difficulty", Normal difficulty is normal, Hard is hard... When I was younger and was playing RTS games I thought "Normal difficulty" was super hard, so I always played on easy.. Now I learned how to get around difficult situations and improve myself, do the same guys, instead of asking for something to change, change yourself to the better.

[jwenting]

many of the part testing missions are impossible or next to impossible to achieve, so I tend to ignore them (the requirements are such that getting something where it needs to be at just the right time is just not doable).

That's the problem with randomly generated missions of course...

[Dudicus]

just wondering if those asking for better payouts on contracts realize that you can set the percentage rewards on the custom difficulty settings menu. seems like an easy way to adjust to your specific liking. i personally just started a new career with .90 at 50% reward payout for science, funds and rep because i felt that it was originally too easy to tech up and get cash. i think given the new mechanics of .90 i may have gone overboard, but i'm gonna continue cause i'm a glutton for punishment.

[SkyRex94]

What exactly are you arguing here?!?!?!?!?!

It's not like KSP just has 3-4 options like medium-hard-eas etc. to chose from. They implemented the difficulty panel exactly for this reason: EVERYBODY has a different OPINION and enjoys different things. In the difficulty panel you can adjust all the values yourself. Not enough money? Set the money payout up. Too easy Science? set the science payout down. To hard penalties? set them down.

So what exactly do you want? Should squad change normal-setting? Why ? Some people like it now, and they will then start to dislike it, Squad can't satisfy everybody: but you can do that yourself, just set the difficulty how you like it.

For the reason of finding the right settings faster without much trying, I just recently started a Thread, where everybody could post their settings, and tell how the experience is on that difficulty settings.

Not many answered though, but threads like this appear, where people say 'normal' or 'hard' is not to their taste. Then change it so it fits your taste.

(Wait, i will lookup where my Difficulty-Settings-Collection thread went, for those of you interested)

Edit: here

Edited December 17, 2014 by SkyRex94

[Joonatan1998]

I think the easier difficulties should be a bit easier, but hard being actually hard is a good thing.

[X-SR71]

Yeah, it took a bit of grinding through contracts to get enough funds to upgrade some of the facilities ... like getting maneuver nodes ... game is virtually unplayable for me without them!

I made the terrible mistake of accepting a 'rescue kerbal from LKO' mission without maneuver nodes.

Luckily for me, these missions always seem to have the kerbal on equatorial orbits, so no normal burns. I managed to do it. Hint: You cant target another object without flight plan in the map, but if you get close to the object you may still target it. Knowing the relative delta-vs to the target is essential to adjusting orbit.

As for getting funds early on, once you're able to launch a probe with a thermometer, you can simply farm 'get science from orbit' contracts.

Edited December 17, 2014 by X-SR71

[Apexazimuth]

I find the part testing missions grindy, tedious, and sometimes just downright stupid.

It would be entertaining to rarely see a totally ludicrous part testing contract, which an equally ludicrous payout. However, far too often do I see contracts such as "Test S1 SRB-KD25k splashed down at EVE" with a payout of only 1/10th of what it would cost to achieve such a mission.

Grinding contracts is boring, because the contracts are repetitive and uninteresting. The only ones I get excited about are the exploration missions, and even those are totally formulaic.

I would love to see multi-part contracts that represent a coherent progression of a space program. Many of the progressive missions included in the Mission Controller addon are what I'd like to see in the base game.

Also, access to maneuver nodes should be immediate, at least on normal difficulty. Maneuver nodes effectively fill the make-believe planning process of spaceflight. As it is, it's as if we have absolutely zero telemetry on the base or on the vessel. That makes no sense.

[harlikwin]

I'm going to have to agree with the folks saying that normal mode is fine. Honestly I think I had to fly a few airplane survey missions, and a few orbital missions before I set off for the Mun. I do find the parts testing to be absurd in some cases, but then I don't take those contracts. Also, I think some folks don't understand (and I did not until recently) that prestige helps you get bigger, better paying contracts. I made 1/2 a million on one lunar survey mission (enough to pay for my shiny new science building) and some absurd amount of science to go with it. Also I echo the sentiments that there are sliders to adjust the contract rewards if you feel like you aren't getting enough contracts.

But at the end of the day I think the main comment I have is that "forcing" me to do stuff I had little interest in before has actually made the game more fun and challenging. I never really worked with the aircraft component of the system before, and the kerbin surveys forced me to learn how to build a decent basic aircraft (though I will complain that landing gear should probably be included with the basic aircraft parts). I very seldomly used to launch probes and satellites, and now looking at those lucrative launch contracts changed my mind on that.

I'm torn a bit on the lack of maneuver nodes at the beginning, but at the same time you can get to the Mun, and minimus and back without them (luckily I learned how back before the maneuver node system existed). And actually doing it the old fashioned way was alot of fun for me.

I guess that for me the challenge of career mode is having to be strategic about choosing missions to bootstrap the program forward from economic and scientific standpoints and then the additional challenge of building the smallest, cheapest solution to get the mission done. Otherwise there is always sandbox mode for people who want to start off with everything, and science mode for those folks that are just interested in that part of the game.

[Franklin]

I find the part testing missions grindy, tedious, and sometimes just downright stupid.

Yeah I disagree with the grinding issue (keep in mind we're all veteran players re-playing world 1-1 over, and over, and over), but yeah the part-testing contracts are exhaustively dull. I refuse to take them, and sometimes I have no issue because I need to raise funds and that's all there is in my ability at the time.

[Greenfire32]

Yeah I disagree with the grinding issue (keep in mind we're all veteran players re-playing world 1-1 over, and over, and over), but yeah the part-testing contracts are exhaustively dull. I refuse to take them, and sometimes I have no issue because I need to raise funds and that's all there is in my ability at the time.

I refuse them partly because they make no sense 80% of the time and mostly because the payout is like literal cents. Like they want me to build a $100,000 craft, test a tiny little part, and then pay me what basically equates to $.05?

Erm...no.

Also, I'm not testing airplane landing gear whilst on an escape trajectory from Kerbin.

[rodion]

i don't mind some of the part contracts, but i flatly refuse to wait half a kerbal year whilst my throwaway part payload sails through interplanetary space so i can do a Run Test in duna orbit. all that for a basic jet engine?

[Franklin]

I mean at best they're a freebee bolt-on contract for another, better contract. Like when they want you to test booster X on Kerbin and hell, I was gonna anyway so sure.

[Franklin]

If we got payout multiplier bonuses for taking many contracts at once then maybe the part contracts may be kinda funny/weird. But I somehow doubt these companies want us to test their parts for the sake of compound humour.

[Ziff]

I'm now playing easy with the funds slider maxed at 500k. This is about right for how I enjoy playing the game. The point is that while it's nice that the people who thought hard mode was to easy are now happy, the people who played on normal are finding the game too hard and grindy.

I haven't found it hard or grindy at all. It only took me 6 hours to get all the buildings to lvl 2, accumulate and spend 2600 science, and have a reserve of $500k. I haven't even gone to the moon yet.

[SorryDave]

I think the balance between challenging and grinding are much better in 0.90 than 0.25.

I'll need much more play time to be sure, but all the pieces seem to have come together well. I now believe that balancing this game just requires tweaking and not a major overhaul.

[Pe-Ter]

Did they change the amount of funds you get from the contracts? I am actually playing 0.90 but still using old saves in which I have around 1.3 mln (2.1 mln was the maximum ammount I had) so I don't care about contracts anymore. I would like to know this because I might need them as soon as my funds deplete.

[Torquemadus]

I refuse them partly because they make no sense 80% of the time and mostly because the payout is like literal cents. Like they want me to build a $100,000 craft, test a tiny little part, and then pay me what basically equates to $.05?

Erm...no.

Also, I'm not testing airplane landing gear whilst on an escape trajectory from Kerbin.

The part testing contracts are very random at the moment. I play on custom difficulty, so I get even less rewards for completing them. It would seem that the test contracts have not been balanced to ensure they are always profitable. I pick and choose which contracts to accept based on cost versus reward.

Some parts are small enough that I can take them along on a trip to somewhere I was going to go anyway, and thus get myself some extra income by bringing it along. The viability of testing larger parts depends on what I'm supposed to do with them.

If you are supposed to test a part by activating it through the test sequence, you can modify the test sequence in flight to "activate" the part as many times as you need to, even if you have already been using it. This makes it a lot easier to test big engines. It also makes a big difference if you can recover the parts after the test.

[Jean Deaux]

I am finding it quite challenging, rather enjoying it too. I am more concerned with the new player though. I'm only able to move forward well in the game because I'm already familiar with the flight mechanics and how to navigate. If I was new to the game, I think I might be rather furious and wish I never spent money on this game as the initial levels should really be learning based; but at least there is still sandbox mode. Perhaps a notice to players if this is the game's initial launch and their first selection is career mode, a little warning to say this may not be the right path for you, are you SURE you want to do this the hard way?

Otherwise I do, for the most part, like the new throttled back limiting features placed in career mode because I do now have to re-think how to do a lot of these challenges as well as brush up on my piloting skills that I had been passing off to MechJeb for time sake. The only real negative comment I think I might offer up is that I feel that airplane parts should be basic or next to basic technology to have. If we're going to space, we should already have the means to fly within the atmosphere.

I'm still getting used to the new assembly features, a couple of tutorials would be handy here. Overall, I really like this update so far.

[liweih]

I play on hard mode and I think it is really hard but it is still playable. I haven't unlocked any building yet including the tracking station. The 30 parts and 18 tons limit is really annoying but I manage to do some valuable mission. And I think you can still go to the moon even you can not used the manuevour node if you know some old trick.

[Jean Deaux]

Well, here's one for you "experts". I took on the rescue a Kerbal mission, but alas I'm not able to target. Any tips for making a rendezvous in space without any guidance? Best to come back to this after I get targetting? (assuming I do get that skill later)

[Wanderfound]

I refuse them partly because they make no sense 80% of the time and mostly because the payout is like literal cents. Like they want me to build a $100,000 craft, test a tiny little part, and then pay me what basically equates to $.05?

Erm...no.

Also, I'm not testing airplane landing gear whilst on an escape trajectory from Kerbin.

I just did: one Stayputnik, two BACC SRBs, one pair of aircraft gear. Burn straight up, test. About 30 science, about √5,000. Bargain.