RP-AXE

A career for RO that keeps the real solar system, the real rockets and the real physics, and takes an axe to everything in RP-1 that is not engineering or exploration.

This download is the mod only. RP-AXE runs on the full Realism Overhaul stack plus about 50 realism and part mods. Install it with CKAN as described below; unzipping this file into a game without that stack will not work. It conflicts with RP-1: install one or the other, never both.

Status: 0.9 public beta. Every system is built and has been played through, by one person, once (about five months for the whole tree). Bug reports and balance notes are the point of this release.

What it is

RP-AXE runs on the same realism stack as RP-1 (Realism Overhaul, Real Solar System, Real Fuels, Kerbalism, RealAntennas, ...) but replaces RP-1's career plugin with a thin layer of its own. That layer does three things: gate parts with science, charge money for launches, and hand you missions worth flying.

• A tech tree built from scratch. About 530 nodes by engineering discipline: metallurgy, propellant chemistry, cryogenics, microelectronics, guidance, telecommunications, nuclear, life support and more. Every node is a real breakthrough with its own flavour text. Parts sit on the breakthrough that made them hard, so a lander comes together from nodes across the tree. Browse the whole tree in your browser.
• Science is the gate. No science on Earth below 40 km. The solar system holds far more science than the tree costs, so you progress by going wider, not by farming. KerbalismLab station science is in and balanced.
• No management. No build times, tooling, facility upkeep, crew training or reliability grind. Time warp is free. RP-1's programs and contracts are ported, so there is always a mission worth flying.
• Engineering challenges. RO's curated parts in the real solar system, plus about twenty part mods (Near Future, Far Future, CryoEngines, Kerbal Atomics, SSPXr, Tantares, ...) placed in the tree. AXE's own avionics: you size the box, and going over capacity corrupts your control inputs instead of locking you out. An in-editor flight simulator and free launch-site switching.
• Ahistorical. Balanced for fun, not for the history books: imagine kerbalkind united behind space exploration from the late 1940s.

Coming from RP-1? Everything removed, replaced, ported and changed is listed in CHANGES-VS-RP1.md.

Install

KSP 1.12.x (tested on 1.12.5). Breaking Ground strongly recommended. Budget 40+ GB of disk for the High graphics set.

1. From the GitHub release page, download RP-AXE-0.9.0.ckan and one of RP-AXE-Express-Low.ckan (4K planet textures only) or RP-AXE-Express-High.ckan (Parallax, Scatterer, 16K textures, RSSVE-HR).
2. In CKAN: File → Install from .ckan file. Install the Express file first, then RP-AXE.
3. Decline the further recommendations CKAN offers; they come from the dependencies and the tree places nothing from them.
4. Start a new Career. The first launch compiles every part and takes several minutes.

A listing on the CKAN registry is in review; once it lands, installing becomes a single tick.

Feedback

Bugs and balance notes go to GitHub Issues. The RP-1 team does not support RP-AXE, so please don't take its problems to them.

License and credits

CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0. RP-AXE is a derivative of RP-1 and builds on the work of the RP-1 and Realism Overhaul teams; the idea comes from LRTR. Full attribution in LICENSE.md. Source: github.com/miskoltrans/RP-AXE.