Post 1: Odyssey Career Mode & Your Role, Difficulty Options, Rules & Requirements 1-8
Post 2: Rules & Requirements 9-21
Post 3 Mission list (Earth, Moon, Interplanetary and Mars)
Post 4: Mission list (Phobos, Deimos, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and its moons and Interstellar)
The difference between the difficulties lie with Rule 1 and Rule 4. Each have 2 variations, A and B. You can read each of the rule variations in the rule descriptions below.
Extreme: Rules 1-A and 4-A are in effect. (not recommended if you don't have the parts expansion pack)
Hardcore: Rules 1-B and 4-A are in effect. (not recommended if you don't have the parts expansion pack)
Hard: Rules 1-A and 4-B are in effect.
Normal: Rules 1-B and 4-B are in effect.
(Whether you are using rule 4-A or 4-B heavily effects the designs of rockets, so if you decide to take up this challenge and share pictures of your rockets, it would add much needed context if you mention which rule or difficulty you're using. You don't have to, but it would make it easier to learn from or make comparisons)
1-B. If any crew member dies or is permanently stranded somewhere, the punishment described in 1-A will ONLY apply to the mission group of the mission you killed a crew member in. Missions are grouped by planets and moons, so if a crew member dies while trying to complete a Moon mission, all crewed Moon missions will be locked again except the first one, any living crew still deployed on a Moon mission must be returned to Earth and recovered, and all existing craft/structures launched to complete crewed Moon missions will be unusable. Probe missions/existing probe craft, and all non-Moon mission craft/crew would be unaffected.
2. Simulations, real launches and reverting. You're allowed to run simulations to test rockets, but for real launches you must tell yourself "This is a real launch" before launching. In real launches, if something goes wrong, you can't revert the save or start over. You have to deal with it. Before running simulations, You must make a "real" save first, and load it back up when you want to do a real launch. You're allowed to make a "real" save mid mission to simulated things like landings or if you have enough fuel, but ONLY if you're in a stable orbit/a long time warp away from the crafts destination. Basically if ground control has enough time to simulate it in real time, it's okay to pause and sim. Sadly I don't have any punishments in place if I fail a probe mission. Like I said in the first rule, perhaps I can come up with something if I can get currency in place.
3. Build using as little fuel as possible. This is the main workaround to not having currency. If you can find a way to cut fuel and still complete the mission, you have to do it. There are two exceptions to this rule; if you have a manned rocket barely able to make it back to Earth in a simulation, Rule 1 will let you add slightly more fuel to ensure they can make it back for the real launch. The other is cutting weight from aesthetic, rped payloads. Sometimes a mission will require things like large habitats and even a drill platform. These can be built as big and heavy as you deem appropriate for what they are supposed to be, but the booster stages that launch it and get the payload to its destination must follow the rule and use as little fuel as you can manage.
4-A. Before all launches you must exit to the main menu from the launchpad and resume, this fixes the issue where there is barely any atmospheric drag. A warning: drag does not always apply correctly with the way SFS is coded and will often result in heavier drag penalties than you might expect. Rockets launched with full drag will sometimes need to be twice as heavy in order to make orbit. The lead developer Stef has been posting sneak peeks of the next update which include a reworking of the way drag works, which may render this rule moot. Until then however, enabling drag with this trick will significantly change the way you construct rockets.
For detailed information about how drag will affect individual parts, be sure to check out this spreadsheet and thread by Altaïr:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1010FfVr77E2I9gpNUgGKXX35A69AafIvFp7W4Jsiw-4/htmlview
https://jmnet.one/sfs/forum/index.php?threads/aerodynamics-in-sfs.2115/
4-B. Rule 4 does not apply at all, you may launch rockets normally.
5. Manned missions, depending on the destination, must have a minimum crew count. A command module counts as 1 crew, and a minimum of 2.5 tons of parts are to be attached to it to represent each additional crew. It could be probes, fuel tanks, batteries, RTGs, so long as it's at least 2.5 tons per crew member. All mission crew requirements increase in 2's, so 1 crew, 3 crew, 5 crew and so on, so you will mostly need to think in terms of adding an additional 5 tons. Keep in mind impact thresholds when designing your crew modules. Things like fuel tanks will destroy much easier than a command module. Pack your parachutes, or even landing legs and test your modules.
Now, I can see some loopholes being utilized here, so this is a list of parts that can NOT be used as crew analogues: Parachutes, all engines, landing legs, solar panels/arrays and wheels. You can still add these parts to your module of course, but their weight won't count towards the 2.5 tons per crew.
Special note: If using fuel tanks to represent crew, you cannot use that fuel. It must be sectioned off. I understand you might not have a choice in the matter when using rcs, so i'll add a stipulation that you must transfer fuel to top off your module if rcs uses it, and you can't use rcs if your module fuel is the only fuel you have. If using batteries or RTG's, also note that they wont count towards any power or battery requirements your mission or ship might have. You must add additional batteries and power generators if you have a need for them.
Earth orbit/suborbit: 1 crew
Moon flyby: 1 crew
Moon orbit/landing: 3 crew
Mars/Phobos/Deimos/Venus: 5 crew
Mercury/Jupiters moons: 7 crew
These are all general outlines, but crew minimums for some specific missions may vary and will be specified in the mission outline.
6. Low Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit and Geostationary Orbit. For the purpose of creating targeted orbit missions I have set heights for these orbits. LEO is 30-200km, MEO is 200-1769.3km, and GEO is 1769.4km. Since GEO doesn't actually exist in SFS (since planets don't rotate) I came up with that height by scaling real world GEO down by the same ratio that Earth in SFS was scaled down to.
7. Relay/Communication satellites require at least 1 probe, 1 power generation, 100 battery and some kind of radar dish/antenna. In the past I used a 4 section structural part as an antenna, but I now use a separator with structural parts to make a radar dish. A neat trick also is to use a landing leg as an extendable antenna. If you decide to play this career mode yourself feel free to design it however you wish.
Satellite relay networks use a minimum of 3 relay satellites in orbit around a celestial body to bounce signals off each other to provide complete 360 degrees of coverage no matter where you are on the surface. An example of a 5-satellite relay network I have around Earth atm:
8. Science Probe Satellites/Landers/Rovers. All these require a minimum of 2 probes, 2 power generation, 200 battery and a radar dish/antenna (like with the relay/comm satellites). Science Satellites are required to be put in orbit of any celestial body you plan to land on. There are other rules like this but they don't really need to be listed here since missions like probe/manned landings are locked to start with and need to be unlocked by other missions.
For science probe missions that land on the surface and are required to be returned to Earth, the only parts that need to be returned are the probes. They are carrying surface samples. The power generators/batteries have served their purpose and are free to be kept or discarded for the return trip.
Post 2: Rules & Requirements 9-21
Post 3 Mission list (Earth, Moon, Interplanetary and Mars)
Post 4: Mission list (Phobos, Deimos, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and its moons and Interstellar)
ODYSSEY CAREER MODE & YOUR ROLE
You are a startup private space company. You must qualify yourself by completing basic missions to prove your capabilities which will then allow you to undertake more complex and difficult missions. Your dreams include landing people on worlds not yet explored by man, searching the depths of Europa for life, building permanant outposts on Mars and maybe one day looking beyond our solar system. Those are all far off ideas though, you still haven't even launched a rocket off Earth. Time to get to work.
DIFFICULTY OPTIONS
Odyssey Career Mode is not for inexperienced players. Even for veteran players some of the rules in this challenge can be extreme or just plain unfair. Maybe even impossible if you haven't purchased the extra parts pack, so there are 4 difficulty options to choose from.
The difference between the difficulties lie with Rule 1 and Rule 4. Each have 2 variations, A and B. You can read each of the rule variations in the rule descriptions below.
Extreme: Rules 1-A and 4-A are in effect. (not recommended if you don't have the parts expansion pack)
Hardcore: Rules 1-B and 4-A are in effect. (not recommended if you don't have the parts expansion pack)
Hard: Rules 1-A and 4-B are in effect.
Normal: Rules 1-B and 4-B are in effect.
(Whether you are using rule 4-A or 4-B heavily effects the designs of rockets, so if you decide to take up this challenge and share pictures of your rockets, it would add much needed context if you mention which rule or difficulty you're using. You don't have to, but it would make it easier to learn from or make comparisons)
RULES & REQUIREMENTS
1-A. Human life is sacred. Above all the safe return of crewed missions is paramount. If any crew member dies or is permanently stranded somewhere, all active crews must be immediately returned to Earth. At which point, all crewed missions become locked again and you must start over from mission 2. Probe missions and probe spacecraft/satellites remain as is, but all existing space stations and other craft made for crewed missions are now unusable. If a crew is stranded, all other projects must be put on hold until their safety can be confirmed. In the future if I can get some kind of currency figured out there could be a financial loss, but until then this will do.
1-B. If any crew member dies or is permanently stranded somewhere, the punishment described in 1-A will ONLY apply to the mission group of the mission you killed a crew member in. Missions are grouped by planets and moons, so if a crew member dies while trying to complete a Moon mission, all crewed Moon missions will be locked again except the first one, any living crew still deployed on a Moon mission must be returned to Earth and recovered, and all existing craft/structures launched to complete crewed Moon missions will be unusable. Probe missions/existing probe craft, and all non-Moon mission craft/crew would be unaffected.
2. Simulations, real launches and reverting. You're allowed to run simulations to test rockets, but for real launches you must tell yourself "This is a real launch" before launching. In real launches, if something goes wrong, you can't revert the save or start over. You have to deal with it. Before running simulations, You must make a "real" save first, and load it back up when you want to do a real launch. You're allowed to make a "real" save mid mission to simulated things like landings or if you have enough fuel, but ONLY if you're in a stable orbit/a long time warp away from the crafts destination. Basically if ground control has enough time to simulate it in real time, it's okay to pause and sim. Sadly I don't have any punishments in place if I fail a probe mission. Like I said in the first rule, perhaps I can come up with something if I can get currency in place.
3. Build using as little fuel as possible. This is the main workaround to not having currency. If you can find a way to cut fuel and still complete the mission, you have to do it. There are two exceptions to this rule; if you have a manned rocket barely able to make it back to Earth in a simulation, Rule 1 will let you add slightly more fuel to ensure they can make it back for the real launch. The other is cutting weight from aesthetic, rped payloads. Sometimes a mission will require things like large habitats and even a drill platform. These can be built as big and heavy as you deem appropriate for what they are supposed to be, but the booster stages that launch it and get the payload to its destination must follow the rule and use as little fuel as you can manage.
4-A. Before all launches you must exit to the main menu from the launchpad and resume, this fixes the issue where there is barely any atmospheric drag. A warning: drag does not always apply correctly with the way SFS is coded and will often result in heavier drag penalties than you might expect. Rockets launched with full drag will sometimes need to be twice as heavy in order to make orbit. The lead developer Stef has been posting sneak peeks of the next update which include a reworking of the way drag works, which may render this rule moot. Until then however, enabling drag with this trick will significantly change the way you construct rockets.
For detailed information about how drag will affect individual parts, be sure to check out this spreadsheet and thread by Altaïr:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1010FfVr77E2I9gpNUgGKXX35A69AafIvFp7W4Jsiw-4/htmlview
https://jmnet.one/sfs/forum/index.php?threads/aerodynamics-in-sfs.2115/
4-B. Rule 4 does not apply at all, you may launch rockets normally.
5. Manned missions, depending on the destination, must have a minimum crew count. A command module counts as 1 crew, and a minimum of 2.5 tons of parts are to be attached to it to represent each additional crew. It could be probes, fuel tanks, batteries, RTGs, so long as it's at least 2.5 tons per crew member. All mission crew requirements increase in 2's, so 1 crew, 3 crew, 5 crew and so on, so you will mostly need to think in terms of adding an additional 5 tons. Keep in mind impact thresholds when designing your crew modules. Things like fuel tanks will destroy much easier than a command module. Pack your parachutes, or even landing legs and test your modules.
Now, I can see some loopholes being utilized here, so this is a list of parts that can NOT be used as crew analogues: Parachutes, all engines, landing legs, solar panels/arrays and wheels. You can still add these parts to your module of course, but their weight won't count towards the 2.5 tons per crew.
Special note: If using fuel tanks to represent crew, you cannot use that fuel. It must be sectioned off. I understand you might not have a choice in the matter when using rcs, so i'll add a stipulation that you must transfer fuel to top off your module if rcs uses it, and you can't use rcs if your module fuel is the only fuel you have. If using batteries or RTG's, also note that they wont count towards any power or battery requirements your mission or ship might have. You must add additional batteries and power generators if you have a need for them.
Earth orbit/suborbit: 1 crew
Moon flyby: 1 crew
Moon orbit/landing: 3 crew
Mars/Phobos/Deimos/Venus: 5 crew
Mercury/Jupiters moons: 7 crew
These are all general outlines, but crew minimums for some specific missions may vary and will be specified in the mission outline.
6. Low Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit and Geostationary Orbit. For the purpose of creating targeted orbit missions I have set heights for these orbits. LEO is 30-200km, MEO is 200-1769.3km, and GEO is 1769.4km. Since GEO doesn't actually exist in SFS (since planets don't rotate) I came up with that height by scaling real world GEO down by the same ratio that Earth in SFS was scaled down to.
7. Relay/Communication satellites require at least 1 probe, 1 power generation, 100 battery and some kind of radar dish/antenna. In the past I used a 4 section structural part as an antenna, but I now use a separator with structural parts to make a radar dish. A neat trick also is to use a landing leg as an extendable antenna. If you decide to play this career mode yourself feel free to design it however you wish.
Satellite relay networks use a minimum of 3 relay satellites in orbit around a celestial body to bounce signals off each other to provide complete 360 degrees of coverage no matter where you are on the surface. An example of a 5-satellite relay network I have around Earth atm:
8. Science Probe Satellites/Landers/Rovers. All these require a minimum of 2 probes, 2 power generation, 200 battery and a radar dish/antenna (like with the relay/comm satellites). Science Satellites are required to be put in orbit of any celestial body you plan to land on. There are other rules like this but they don't really need to be listed here since missions like probe/manned landings are locked to start with and need to be unlocked by other missions.
For science probe missions that land on the surface and are required to be returned to Earth, the only parts that need to be returned are the probes. They are carrying surface samples. The power generators/batteries have served their purpose and are free to be kept or discarded for the return trip.
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