easy on extreme difficulty?!

[g.koster]

I started out doing extreme difficulty. All in 10% or 1000% and -1000 I left reload and relaunch on, this because I didn't what to calculate everything but enjoy the game itself with it trial and error.

I played with FAR and TAC. Which can influence some effects.

I noticed that science is the most difficult factor, reputation did grow very quickly and money as expected slowly, I'm just thinking going to the moon after a weekend of play.

Money was made from doing out of atmosphere research jobs and rescuing kerbals, science was made by doing the odd part testing. I left visiting places as the jobs not done.

I also noticed when starting to play with the admin office that when putting 25% from rep to science I suddenly get huge amount of science. I mean from 1/3 of the jobs producing 1 science for testing suddenly I get 7 science for a getting a data out of atmosphere. This before didn't give and science at all.

Does anyone also notice similar imbalances?

What are other players getting money and science from on this level?

[michaelsteele3]

Maybe you're just good.

[sal_vager]

Strategies are a strange one to balance I feel as they effectively allow you to rebalance your contract rewards to your tastes, how do you balance a feature that by its very nature changes the balance of the game?

Maybe you shouldn't get reputation or science from contracts, only funds, reputation should be awarded for any successful flight and taken away when Kerbals or craft are lost, and science should be from experiments only.

Just my thoughts

[Sof]

Yeah, the Admin building makes career mode much easier than science mode.

Science was always the bottle neck, but when a simple satellite missions gives you thousands of science, it stops being hard.

IMO the Admin building needs a bit of rejiggering

[zarakon]

If you have rewards and 10% and penalties at 1000%, good luck on ever upgrading that R&D building... Your buildings will effectively cost 100x normal difficulty, or 25x hard. Actually even worse than that if you consider your profit margins per contract will be lower.

If you're able to run all the basic missions without any major failures, then no difficulty settings will actually be difficult in the sense that you're looking for - everything will just take a lot longer.

[Yemo]

If stock + far and tac is too easy, you might want to take a look at my SETI-BalanceMod, link is in the signature.

It aims at tackling those major stock imbalances.

For a really great and challenging game, play fully modded and on hard or even 50% reward setting.

You have to think, but it is not overly grindy if you dont go over 200% penalty (which influences building upgrades).

Rrecommended mods are listed in the "INSTALL" and "STATUS" sections in the thread.

[UmbralRaptor]

Admittedly if you're careful at mission choices ultrahard modes aren't so much hard as grindy. A sounding rocket for kerbin space science contracts is notably effective if somewhat slow. Of course once you unlock panels, it's not hard to have a permanent station for that (both in Kerbin orbit and in Munar orbit). But do keep in mind the need to climb up a ~1200 rep wall to run the strategy you mentioned.

[LethalDose]

I also noticed when starting to play with the admin office that when putting 25% from rep to science I suddenly get huge amount of science. I mean from 1/3 of the jobs producing 1 science for testing suddenly I get 7 science for a getting a data out of atmosphere. This before didn't give and science at all.

Does anyone also notice similar imbalances?

Yep, the "balance" of the admin building is pretty borked in terms of science exchange rates. Lots of threads already started on this topic.

[Moar Boosters]

I've found the best way to make career mode challenging is to try and complete the contracts using ultra-cheap rockets with multiple stages of SRBs.

Reliable rockets are one of the things that contribute to the "grind". If you use SRB's in combination with the stayputnik core, your rockets will be a lot more exciting to fly.

[UmbralRaptor]

Reliable rockets are one of the things that contribute to the "grind". If you use SRB's in combination with the stayputnik core, your rockets will be a lot more exciting to fly.

You aren't throwing that many boosters at a problem until you break the 18 t mass limit, so there's a real chance of getting jet engines first at low reward settings. And of course, once you've debugged a design, it'll stay reliable...

[Dudicus]

in my current career, i've been using 50%/200% with the same settings for reload and relaunch as you, for the same reasons as well. i feel like the penalty is pretty irrelevant, since i only accept contracts i know i can reasonably complete. i've decided to limit my use of the strategies to the transponder, at the lowest level since i feel like the other strategies circumvent the intended balance. i've also added several mods, some of those increasing difficulty are: TAC Life Support, Remote Tech, NEAR and Community Tech Tree.

this game has been much slower than all previous career saves. i've pretty much maxed out the tech tree until i unlock Lvl 3 R&D. the acquisition of funds has been the real hurdle at this point. i must say, however, i've learned a lot from this save. before, i would basically max tech by the time i returned from my first interplanetary mission (Duna). however, i'm not even close at this point. i've done a ton of survey missions and temp scans on the Mun and i've learned a lot about roving in low gravity (something i'd never done before this save).

all this to say, even though its slower, i don't feel like its "grindy" per se. since doing repeat missions (back to the mun, again!) often involves me rebuilding craft to be even more fuel efficient or productive, i feel like i'm really progressing, even though my poor wallet is only at $2MM in funds.

[zarakon]

in my current career, i've been using 50%/200% with the same settings for reload and relaunch as you, for the same reasons as well. i feel like the penalty is pretty irrelevant, since i only accept contracts i know i can reasonably complete.

The problem is, the "Penalties" slider also affects the cost of building upgrades.

So playing at 50% rewards and 200% penalties effectively increases the cost of building upgrades by (more than) 4x relaive to normal.

I personally like playing with the rewards and penalties sliders at the same setting, currently 30%. This keeps the building costs at the same scale as part costs. It still takes longer to save up for them though, since lower rewards also means smaller profit margins per-flight.

[liweih]

I played on hard mode, the money required to fully ungrad the r&d was pain in the ass. Currently, I had my VAB AC TS RW LP upgraded to full level. SPH AB R&D at level two. Current cash at about 4.5m, still far from the 6m line.

[KrazyKrl]

The administration building is horribly designed from a strategy standpoint. The rewards it gives you are just absurd, and I don't believe they can be reasonably nerfed without making the strategies themselves nearly non-existant. I suggested a rework of it into something more fitting of a space program here.

Edited January 13, 2015 by KrazyKrl

[MacroNova]

Maybe you shouldn't get reputation or science from contracts, only funds, reputation should be awarded for any successful flight and taken away when Kerbals or craft are lost, and science should be from experiments only.

I think it makes sense to get reputation from completing a contract, but I agree that perhaps we shouldn't get science from completing contracts. Certainly not in the amounts we currently get. I'm not even talking about the Admin building strategy that drowns you in science. Just completing contracts that you need to do anyway nets you hundreds and hundreds of science.

[g.koster]

I think it makes sense to get reputation from completing a contract, but I agree that perhaps we shouldn't get science from completing contracts. Certainly not in the amounts we currently get. I'm not even talking about the Admin building strategy that drowns you in science. Just completing contracts that you need to do anyway nets you hundreds and hundreds of science.

I found that ad 10% difficulty that ad the first stages you only get 1 point if you are doing part testing for new components. and this is the main way you get science ad all. you are really looking for conttracts that give science. to be able to get to the next level.