dealing with Career mode Game Ending Bugs

[PB666]

Judging by some of the other messages, bugs in 0.90 can appear that make it extremely difficult to succeed.

Hard mode lacks the ability to backup up the game in play. Even so in game backups may have already caught bugs that the player would rather not have.

The solution is rather simple for windows

1. Create a shortcut from the [Kerbal Space Program's Root]\Kerbal space program\saves directory

2. After creating a career mode hard game and some play, close the game.

3. Shortcut to saves directory and copy and paste the [games] folder giving it a new name.

4. The new name automatically shows up on game relaunch. Repeat process every before every KSP launch.

5. If a game ending bug appears simply leave the game, delete malfunctioning game folder and launch backup folder.

-This avoids the issue of having to edit the Persistent file for the game. Good for 2 reasons

- Its not a strait forward or easy, particularly if you have a well progressed game

- Its essentially a variant of god mode ability. Players can alter key object stats and 'resurrect' them if abused.

-It will reverse events like pilot killing terrain fall-throughs.

-One can back up and deal with bug misassigned crew (fired crew that end up in subsequent flights).

-One can deal with issues like pilots or vessels 'trapped' within the terrain.*

- Prevents a unusable character from persisting

- Recover lost funds from trapped parts.

The drawbacks are 2 fold:

-You will lose progress since the last backup, but encourages player to quit and restart KSP more frequently, which will prolly reduce some of the bugs.

-Its' a cheat on hard career mode no-save limitations. But IMO, its no more a cheat that editing the persistent file, where a person could add electricity to a derelict vehicle, resurrect a killed pilot, etc. The back-up will not permit a player to muddle through a hard mission as easily as editing the persistent file would. Failed mission will have to be repeated, so in this respect its half a cheat, since you can recover a pilot but not simultaneously recover the mission the pilot was on when the 'mishap' occurred.

*If a recently made vehicle becomes trapped, the player may have to copy that vehicle to the new save fold, or repeat the construction process. This may however not be consistent with parts available during back-up, so to capture a lost vehicle the vehicle may have to be saved in a temporary folder and then added to the game once the parts become available. IOW delete the 'bad' folder after all the vehicles can be moved to the good folder or rebuild lost assemblies from scratch.